Is It Time For Your Athletic Department To Consider An Esports Team?

Whenever an off-the-map competition sells-out an NBA arena, athletic department officials should take notice, regardless of the league’s provenance in typical sport circles. The League of Legends World Championships, the seminal event on the esports calendar, filled the Staples Arena in Los Angeles this past week, no small feat in the world of sports entertainment. And with esports a growing entity on college campuses, many athletic departments should be wondering if they should be investing in an arena that offers an impressive mix of international reach and inclusion for a campus activity.

Several schools have decided esports is worth investing in, having developed advanced computer labs that allow for groups of scholarship esports athletes to train and compete like any other athletic program. Although more niche than traditional teams, esports offer low costs to an institution with easier recruiting of great players due to a lack of scholarship opportunities offered for gaming. This allows schools to put together powerful programs that gain great notoriety in tight-knit gaming circles without massive investment. And while esports don’t carry the national audiences of football and basketball, they do have a strong international presence that, like any other athletic team, can help build the reputation of an institution.

So what does it take for a school to establish an esports program? Following the leads of the relatively few schools who have undertaken this project, there are a couple components necessary. First off, like UC Irvine, which provided the first public college esports arena, a substantial workspace is required. However, this doesn’t have to be a financial burden to the school. In fact, at UCI the computer lab where the school’s esports team trains and competes is a cost-neutral facility as it is rented to other students for an hourly rate and sponsored by relevant tech companies.

Secondly, to be truly elite in this burgeoning category, a school must offer some relief from tuition costs. Kentucky’s University of Pikeville, for example, offers “at least 20” scholarships for esports athletes, the value of which can reach the tens-of-thousands. Fractional compared to the costs of securing recruits for more traditional sports teams, even modest esports scholarships can sway students more easily due to the lack of traditional programs and available money from most schools.

The takeaways from such investments can be substantial. As UCI esports director Mark Deppe observed, esports “transcends language, geography, race, age, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, physical ability and many other identities.” The opportunity to create an inclusive space for competition is all-too-rare on today’s college campuses and something many athletic department strive for. Furthermore, although still small in scale compared to the behemoths of college athletics, esports has a growing future that requires a relatively small investment. Even if your school doesn’t become a video game superpower, perhaps it is worth the risk to create an inclusive competitive environment with tremendous upside.